On Monday, Darina told us we might find ourselves getting rather frustrated this week. Along with week 5 (the first low point) the next bump in the road is officially supposed to be week 10.
“You’re all tired and it’s suddenly hits you there are only 2 weeks left. You’re overwhelmed, unsure of what might come next, some of you may feel you never want to see a pot or a pan again and everyone is annoying you… including me! But don’t worry, all this will pass” – Darina
For me, any low points (e.g. a 1am finish while writing out my final menu, to facing a small mountain of filing, to feeling like a lobster murderer) have been totally outweighed by the good stuff. The foraging classes, the miraculous lamb butchery lesson where I learnt the best way ever to french trim a rack of lamb, the tapas demonstration (and sherry tasting….) the Californian wine tasting, the pop-up dinner. Again, many, many times to count my blessings and feel immensely grateful.
This weekend was also a good one. On Saturday Pam took us through a cake decorating master class. I mean what this woman can’t do with a cake, some icing sugar and a sprinkle of glitter….. it’s impressive.
A small glimpse of some of her magic:
We also hosted a pop-up charity dinner, to fundraise for the East Cork Educational Programme. I didn’t contribute nearly as much as some people, who came up and road tested 3 delicious dishes, but I designed the menu and helped work in the kitchen on Sunday evening.
Anyway in the interests of keeping my blog posts short and sweet (and actually studying!) here is a summary of the week in numbers:
- 3 course menus created for final exam – (I whittled it down to a top 5, then 3 and then finally a top 1)
- 3 course menus submitted for final exam- 1
- Days until wine exam – 2 (eeek!)
- Days until final practical exam – 9 (my slot is 12 on Wednesday 23rd March)
- Days until final written exams – 11 (all day Friday 25th March)
- Number of times practised chocolate cake – 2
- Racks of lamb I’m practised french trimming in the past week – 2 (french trimming entails sawing off the backbone then removing the epigrams and all scraps of meat from the top 3rd of the lamb bones)
- Minutes taken to french trim my lamb – 17 and counting…. practise makes perfect!
- Best time to go foraging at the beach – 30 mins before low tide
- Amount of money to be made from the international Olive Oil Black Market – more than cocaine trafficking*
*Darina verified fact
Ok – over and out for week 10.
2 weeks to go!
x
